LXXXII ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
always be known and would be readily adjusted in the exchange of 
commodities by the addition or deduction of a small percentage. 
The affiliation of the systems by the simple means of a modern 
metre of forty inches would admit of the immediate adoption of the 
metric system in all hitherto non-metric countries without causing the 
least complication or confusion. The principle of the decimal division 
would be introduced and it would gradually come to be employed for all 
purposes for which it is applicable, while the old measures would remain 
in use as might be found convenient. 
After a few years’ experience, various questions which cannot wisely 
be settled now, would settle themselves. It would in fact become a case 
of the survival of the fittest. If the metric system proved to possess 
all the advantages claimed for it by its most ardent advocates, it would 
assuredly gain ascendency. If on the, contrary, the old English measures 
proved to be regarded, all things considered, as the best, in all probability 
their use would be continued, although possibly in a simplified form. 
It is extremely doubtful if the land measures of the metric system 
are ever likely to come into general use in Canada or the United States. 
Surveyors, farmers, conveyancers, and others, will recognize that any 
change from the system which has been used for generations, in laying 
out vast areas into township and farm lots, cannot with any apparent 
advantage be interfered with. Interference would certainly complicate 
and possibly invalidate titles to property in many cases. 
The metric system emended as described, without violently dis- 
placing the old measures, would prove a useful supplement to the 
present system in all hitherto non-metric countries; it would enable the 
people of all the nations of the world, practically to speak to each other 
in the same language of weights and measures. 
In these remarks I have not alluded to the conflict which has long 
been waging between the advocates and the opponents of the metric 
system in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and indeed 
wherever the English language, English customs, and English weights 
and measures prevail. I have carefully considered the question from 
both sides, and am inclined to the opinion that the conflict, which has 
been continued with more or less vigour for a century back, is not likely 
to reach a speedy and satisfactory conclusion unless some middle course 
be discovered, which may answer every present purpose and be regarded 
in the light of a compromise which both sides may wisely accept. 
I have explained that the one great obstacle to the adoption of the 
metric system in English speaking communities has been the unfortunate 
choice of a fundamental unit which has no co-relationship whatever with 
